Monday, December 22, 2014

COPS ARE AWESOME. AMERICA IS AWESOME. IN BOTH CASES, CRITICISM IS FORBIDDEN.

John Cole writes:
Put Up or Shut Up

Since the right wing and members of the media have decided to blame everyone but the god damned shooter for the murder of two policemen in NYC, a phrase keeps popping up over and over and over again- "anti-police rhetoric." Here is a prime example:
We have seen nothing but police bashing from some of the highest offices in the land....

When Ismaaiyl Abdulah Brinsley brutally executed Officers Ramos and Liu he did so in an atmosphere of permissiveness and anti-police rhetoric unlike any that I have seen in 45 years in law enforcement. The rhetoric this time is not from the usual suspects, but from the Mayor of New York City, the Attorney General of the United States, and even the President. It emboldens criminals and sends a message that every encounter a black person has with a police officer is one to be feared....
No one, however, provides any examples of this so-called anti-police rhetoric. It's just there, like phlogiston or the Supreme Court's definition of pornography or the Lord Jeebus's undying love for you. You can't pin it down, you can't point to a concrete example of it- well, except for the doctored Fox news video of Al Sharpton. It’s just an article of faith. It's there, and you just have to believe to see it.

Putting aside the fact that "anti-police rhetoric" is a phrase that has rocketed into prominence faster than anything I can remember since the Dick Cheney “gravitas” chorus of 2000, I would like to see some of this so-called anti-police rhetoric. So put up or shut up. Show me some anti-police rhetoric from Obama, Holder, etc. I’d love to see exactly what is off limits....
Bob Hardt of local news station NY1 confirms what Cole writes in the case of Mayor de Blasio:
Just a few hours after two police officers were fatally gunned down by a deranged madman, Pat Lynch, the head of the police union was playing a dangerous blame game.

Noting that "there's blood on many hands tonight", Lynch added: "That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall in the office of the mayor."

... I pored carefully through the many transcripts issued by the mayor's office this year and there's not a single bad word about the police in there. The mayor's foes have fixated on one thing -- de Blasio's story that he has cautioned his bi-racial son to be careful around the police.

One out-of-town journalist asked me for the original transcript of de Blasio's remarks which he made on the day that a grand jury declined to indict anyone in the Eric Garner case, assuming the mayor said something quite incendiary. The strongest language comes when the mayor praises his teen-age son as "a good young man, a law-abiding young man, who would never think to do anything wrong, and yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face -- we've had to literally train him, as families have all over this city for decades, in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him."

That's the call to arms against the NYPD?
But, see, that's too much. Asserting that young black males are detained by the police far more often than young white males is too much, even though it's a statement of plain, unambiguous fact. Asserting that stop-and-frisk as implemented in the Bloomberg years was a policy that warranted reconsidering -- in de Blasio's mayoral campaign, that was too much. There is simply no such thing as acceptable constructive criticism of police practices. There are no bad police policies. There are no bad cops. No cop ever deserves to be indicted. Any claim that any cop or any police department has every done anything wrong is a full-frontal assault on law enforcement.

This works exactly like criticizing America. Since the beginning of his presidency, Barack Obama has been accused of being on an "apology tour." In 2009, when the Heritage Foundation listed Obama's "Top 10 Mistakes," they included such statements as "We have not been perfect" (in reference to relations with the Muslim world) and "potentially we've made some mistakes" (in reference to torture revelations). You can't even say those things. It's not allowed.

Oh, and:
Another Heritage example is a speech Obama gave in April 2009 to the Turkish parliament, in which he was trying to urge that country to come to terms with its tragic history with the Armenians: "The United States is still working through some of our own darker periods in our history. Facing the Washington Monument that I spoke of is a memorial of Abraham Lincoln, the man who freed those who were enslaved even after Washington led our Revolution."
That's right -- you're not even allowed to say that slavery was a mistake. (Or at least not if you're a Democrat -- George W. Bush made a similar point in a 2003 speech in Senegal, and no one complained.)

Obama is supposed to say that (in the words of Fox's Andrea Tantaros) "America is awesome."
"The United States of America is awesome. We are awesome, but we've had this discussion" about torture, Tantaros said. She lamented, "the reason they want to have this discussion is not to show how awesome we are;" rather, "this administration wants to have this discussion to show us how we're not awesome." This is because "they apologized for this country, they don't like this country, they want us to look bad. And all this does is have our enemies laughing at us, that we are having this debate again."
De Blasio is supposed to say that the cops are awesome. Any criticism of any kind is an attempt to destroy law enforcement. It's not permitted. Period.

Oh, and the polemic quoted by John Cole above? It's by Howard Safir -- the worst of Rudy Giuliani's three police commissioners, the one who was in charge when Abner Louima was instrumentally sodomized in a precinct house and Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond were killed by cops. It disgusts me that he's not ashamed to show his face in public.

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

God, I admire your footwork! Whenever, say, Sarah Palin says something which can be linked to a bad happening then all hell breaks out and she is well and truly stuck with it.

But when the Sharpton & Jackson Burlesque Show leads and/or encourages huge and violent demonstrations in which many of the participants shout out for the death of cops, then suddenly, it's "Oh no, nothing to do with us".

Wonderful, you're better than Fred Astaire!

Missy Vixen said...

Shorter duffandnonsense: Since I can't find any evidence of the anti-police rhetoric coming from the left either, I'm just gonna post some silly nonsense about Al Sharpton right here.

Victor said...

What Missy Vixen said!!!

Dark Avenger said...

All bubbles and no beer. He certainly represents the bull in John Bull.

Ten Bears said...

A few freedom fries short of a happy meal.

Steve M. said...

And I've never blamed the Tucson shootings on Palin. It was clear to me from the first that Jared Loughner was deeply mentally ill. His Web postings were a hash of number-based lunacy with a smattering of conspiratorialism that came from many different political directions.

Professor Fate said...

One small point - Sara Palin was nominated and ran for vice president as part of one of the two major parties in the United States and still has credence as a spokesperson for a wing of said party - so one can be forgiven for thinking that she has some effect on folks.
Sharpton not so much. And really until you can cites someone from the podium who said kill the pigs your point is well pointless - what some angry people in the demonstration (and did it ever cross that excellent mind of yours to wonder why said demonstrations were so large?) may have said and dear lord since only the NY Post reported it, the chances of it being true are about 30% did not reflect the folks marching - I was there and the organizers.
your example is the same as trolls who find one comment on Daily Kos out of 350 it say the left is just as bad after some RW TV talking head serves up a howler.

Anonymous said...

"The video, posted on YouTube, shows a few dozen protesters marching down Fifth Avenue at 32nd Street Saturday afternoon. After a few seconds of chanting "Hands up, don’t shoot," the demonstrators changed their cry, apparently yelling out in unison "What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now.""

Well, they got what they wanted!

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Eric-Garner-Manhattan-Dead-Cops-Video-Millions-March-Protest-285805731.html

Anonymous said...

Prof. Fate, alas my comment crossed yours.

Of course, I bow to your superior academic qualifications, you being a professor and all that sort of thing, but are you seriously telling me that Sarah Palin who had her 'five minutes of fame' is *more* influential than the Sharpton & Jackson Road Show which has, alas, been running and running and running for decades.

And given that the overwhelming message those two charlatans have been repeating for decades is that blacks are the victims of white supremacy and that the organs of justice are used to keep them enslaved, it is hardly surprising that from time to time blacks are moved to violence - from which of course, like the soft-shoe-shufflers that they are, they immediately keep a discrete distance.

Neither of them are fit to lick the boots of the great Martin Luther King.

Ten Bears said...

It has been thoroughly demonstrated, duff, that the video you've linked to has been heavily edited (by the lamestream media, no less) to appear that Sharpton was calling for death to cops when, in fact, he wasn't even at the podium at the time those few most likely agents provocateurs were vocalizing that chant.

Strike two.

Unknown said...

Ok, duff

The one " example" you gave has been shown to be questionable at best. We're still waiting for a concrete example for what not only Sharpton and Jackson are being blamed for, but the Mayor of NY and even the President.

Tom Hilton said...

The US military is awesome, and cops are awesome. And neither should be subject to civilian authority.

...unless the civilian authority is Republican.

Professor Fate said...

Duff Sara Palin was chosen to run for vice president of us by the GOP - that's not winning The Voice - She was mentioned as a viable presidential choice as well (nuts but there you go).
Sharpton and Jackson don't have anywhere near that standing in the debate over the national agenda - just witness your reaction to them.
And really - Soft shoe? Why don't you just come out and use the ethnic slur.
Also by saying that Jackson and Sharpton are playing some sort of con game you're implying that the black community in the u.s. is well stupid. Which is well i'll say bloody borderline. The Black community has legitimate complaints even if you don't want that to be true.
And MKL well I do wonder what he would be saying - but a white person shot him. So we can't ask.

Unknown said...

Oh, and duff?


http://gawker.com/slimy-baltimore-fox-affiliate-caught-faking-kill-a-cop-1674040381

Yastreblyansky said...

That awful "dead cops" video is all they have. Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island) was on the radio this morning and Brian Lehrer pressing her for some evidence of this terrible violent climate and she repeated "when people are chanting what do we want dead cops" at least six times. It is literally the only unpleasant thing any demonstrator in New York (to say nothing of the mayor or Al Sharpton) has said.

Speaking of Sharpton, Duff, he has far more credibility and standing than Palin with anyone who speaks English. If you would listen to what he says instead of to your vague memories of what he was saying 30 years ago you might be startled.

Jake said...

How many videos do you need until it's "enough?" Or are you so intent on excusing looting and now murder that there can never be "enough" evidence for you?

Glennis said...

duffandnonsense, please provide citations of the anti-police rhetoric and "huge" violence you've accused Sharpton and Jackson of. And no, something 20 years old doesn't count.

Jake - who do you mean when you say "you"? Do you mean Joni Ernst, who promised to bring a "Second Amendment Solution" if elected officials didn't do what she wants them to do? Do you mean Cliven Bundy? Do you mean the right wing vigilante in Pennsylvania who ambushed and killed police officers? Do you mean Ted Nugent, calling for elected officials to "suck on this" - i.e, his gun?

Your moral dishonesty is disgusting.

Ten Bears said...

The video is fake, Jake. Do we have to write it down for you?

Wag the dog.

Jake said...

@Ten Bears, prove it.

Jake said...

@Aunt Snow, no I mean the violent thugs who looted Ferguson, Missouri twice, and your friend who assassinated two NYPD officers.

Grung_e_Gene said...

The sudden swell of concern for Police Officers by conservatives is so much bullshit.

Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists have been killing Police Officers and Federal LEOs for years, without a peep from the conservative internet media other than to blame President Obama.

Unknown said...

Jake, it's a fake.

And it's already been proven.

Anonymous said...

@ Prof. Fake:

"Soft shoe? Why don't you just come out and use the ethnic slur."

Eh? What? An "ethnic slur"? Where does that come from?

Oh no, don't tell me Fred Astaire was half Jewish!

Ten Bears said...

Barely literate bare-footed rubes drunk on the Ambien, Prozac, Viagra and crotch-shots on Fox/CNN Kool-Aid blindly following a "charismatic" leader to suicide, dragging the rest of us with them. "Best education in the world" my rosey red ass.

No fear. Contempt, lots of contempt, but no fear.

Tom Hilton said...

There was, in fact, a small contingent of black bloc shitheads chanting about dead cops.

But the notion that this small, discreet group are representative of the protest as a whole is completely idiotic--especially considering that they denounced peaceful protestors as "collaborators".

Jake said...

I'm reading a lot of "progressive" denial of your hatred for the police, and of your willingness to excuse murder, mayhem, and crime as long as the perpetrators are black.

Steve M. said...

That's a harrumph, Jake, not a rebuttal. Thanks for playing.

Ten Bears said...

Fox Affiliate Caught Deceptively Editing Footage Of Police Protesters Local Fox Station Edits Tape Of Protest Chant To Fit Anti-Cop Narrative

Buh-bye

Unknown said...

Bears and Steve, you think Jake gives a shit? He's already dubbed the cop-killer our "friend".

the guy's just pissing on the rug.

Grung_e_Gene said...

Look here everyone, what duff&nonsense is showing is the right-wing oppresive mindset. Conservatives only support LEOs when said officers are killing or incarcerating Minorities.

Otherwise, they threaten to use Second Amendment Remedies when Cops get out of line by say arresting rich white lawbreakers or right-wing domestic terrorists.